Several forces are pushing chains out of some city centers: a glut of stores, people working from home, online shopping, exorbitant rents, crime and public safety concerns, and difficulty hiring workers. To reinvent downtown retail, drastic changes may be required.
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The Greektown workers’ announcement comes on the heels of Starbucks workers at Old Orchard Mall in Skokie and the location near Main Street and Chicago Avenue in Evanston voting last month in favor of joining Starbucks Workers United, an SEIU affiliate.
Workers at high-profile companies like Amazon and Starbucks have unionized, as have employees at smaller chains and locally-owned firms. Chicago workers have also been part of the wave. Here’s a look at some of the big developments over the past year.
Workers at six Starbucks locations in Chicago and the suburbs are joining a nationwide wave of three-day unfair labor practice strikes aimed at the mega-coffee retailer, organizers say.
Starbucks workers at coffee shops in Bucktown, Edgewater, northwest suburban Cary, and west suburban Elmhurst joined a nationwide strike Thursday aimed at coinciding with the coffee giant’s popular “Red Cup Day” promotion, organizers say.
The unionization announcement comes one day after Lakeview Starbucks employees voted 11-to-1 in favor of representation, according to voting results shared by organizers. On Monday, Glenview Starbucks workers announced they plan to organize as well.
Workers at a Lakeview Starbucks voted 11-1 on Tuesday to form a union, according to vote results shared by organizers.
Starbucks is shutting down one of the first Chicago locations where workers unionized – just days before the company was set to begin negotiations on a contract.
Employees at a Starbucks in west suburban Elmhurst say they’ve filed for union representation, joining hundreds of other coffee shops around the country and in the Chicago area.
House lawmakers heard testimony Wednesday on barriers workers say they face to organizing, and what pro-business groups and Republicans in Congress call Democratic overreach.
Workers at a unionized Starbucks coffee shop in Edgewater walked off the job Tuesday, protesting what they say is a pattern of the company illegally disciplining employees as retaliation for organizing. Similar charges have been echoed by pro-union Starbucks workers around the U.S.
The workers at the coffee shop, located at the corner of Irving Park Road and Ashland Avenue, are seeking to join the seven other Chicago-area Starbucks locations that have so far voted in favor of unionizing.
The results of the election were released by organizers after a National Labor Relations Board vote count Friday morning. The Devon and Broadway Starbucks joins two others in Edgewater, and one each in Bucktown, Hyde Park, North Park and northwest suburban Cary.
The coffee shop, located at Lincoln and Jersey avenues on the border of North Park and West Ridge, is located in the Lincoln Village shopping center. It’s now the sixth Chicago-area Starbucks to vote for unionization – and among more than 200 around the nation to unionize so far.
Claims against Starbucks include unfairly disciplining employees who backed organizing efforts, threatening retaliation against pro-union workers and forbidding staffers from discussing terms and conditions of their employment.
With Tuesday’s successful vote in Chicago and another in St. Louis, organizers say there are now 150 union Starbucks locations around the U.S.
